III. Event Represented by the Artifact/Significance
'KKK' convict James Ford Seale cleared after 43-year trial delay
James Ford Seale, Charles Moore and Henry Dee
James Ford Seale (centre) was found guilty of charges linked to the deaths of Charles Moore, left and Henry Dee James Bone in New York
A reputed Klansman accused of abducting two black teenagers in one of the last big cases of the American civil rights era has had his conviction thrown out because of the 43-year delay in prosecuting him.
James Ford Seale, 72, a former cropduster and deputy sheriff in his Mississippi home town of Roxie, was found guilty last year of kidnapping the 19-year-old hitch-hikers — Charles Moore and Henry Dee — on May 2, 1964.
An FBI informant said that the local Ku Klux Klan believed mistakenly that Mr Moore, who was returning home after being expelled from university for taking part in a student protest, and Mr Dee, who worked in a local timber yard, were Black Muslims plotting an armed uprising.
The two were bound with duct tape to trees in a nearby forest, beaten with beanpoles and interrogated at gunpoint before being thrown into the Mississippi, lashed to a Jeep engine block and iron weights.
Their decomposed bodies were found by a fisherman two months later during the search for three murdered civil rights activists in the notorious killings portrayed in the 1988 Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning.
Mr Seale, then 28, and Charles Edwards, then 31, were arrested but quickly released. Mr Edwards allegedly told investigators that he and Seale, whose father led a chapter of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, had picked up the hitch-hikers. He insisted they were still alive when he left them.
When asked at the time if he knew why he was being interrogated, Seale told the FBI: “Yes, but I'm not going to admit it. You are going to have to prove it.”
Seale was eventually tracked down by a documentary-maker, David Ridgen, who found him living just a few miles from the scene of the crime despite reports that he was dead.
Seale was sentenced to three life sentences for kidnapping and conspiracy in June 2007 on the basis of the testimony of Mr Edwards, a confessed Klansman, who received immunity from prosecution for his admitted role in the abductions.
Mr Edwards said that Seale had told him how he and other Klansmen had bound the hitch-hikers with tape, put them into a car boot and drove them through part of eastern Louisiana to get to the area where the teenagers were dumped, still alive, into the river.
A federal appeals court overturned Seale's conviction on Tuesday because the 1972 law that abolished the death penalty for kidnapping also set a five-year time limit for prosecutions. “The more than 40-year delay clearly exceeded the limitations period,” Judge Harold R. DeMoss Jr wrote for the three-judge panel.
Seale has been serving his sentences at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he is being treated for cancer and other health problems. He must remain in jail while the prosecutor prepares an appeal.
Charles Moore's brother said that despite the ruling, the trial had still brought out the truth of what happened. “This doesn't take one ounce away from me,” said Thomas Moore. “James Ford Seale has spent more than a year in jail. I know I have disrupted his life.” Hooded menace
— The 19th-century Klan was originally organised as a social club by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. They apparently derived the name from the Greek word kyklos meaning circle
— It was presided over by a grand wizard in a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclops. Members wore robes and sheets to frighten black people, believed to be superstitious, and to prevent identification
— The 20th-century Klan was organised in 1915 in Georgia by Colonel William J. Simmons
— It reached its peak in the 1920s, when its membership across the US exceeded four million
— To the old Klan's hostility towards black people, the new Klan added bias against Roman Catholics, Jews and foreigners
— There are an estimated 6,000 members of Klan chapters in the US today
Source: britannica.com
I. Artifact Name
II. Image
III. Event Represented by the Artifact/Significance
'KKK' convict James Ford Seale cleared after 43-year trial delay
James Ford Seale (centre) was found guilty of charges linked to the deaths of Charles Moore, left and Henry Dee
James Bone in New York
A reputed Klansman accused of abducting two black teenagers in one of the last big cases of the American civil rights era has had his conviction thrown out because of the 43-year delay in prosecuting him.
James Ford Seale, 72, a former cropduster and deputy sheriff in his Mississippi home town of Roxie, was found guilty last year of kidnapping the 19-year-old hitch-hikers — Charles Moore and Henry Dee — on May 2, 1964.
An FBI informant said that the local Ku Klux Klan believed mistakenly that Mr Moore, who was returning home after being expelled from university for taking part in a student protest, and Mr Dee, who worked in a local timber yard, were Black Muslims plotting an armed uprising.
The two were bound with duct tape to trees in a nearby forest, beaten with beanpoles and interrogated at gunpoint before being thrown into the Mississippi, lashed to a Jeep engine block and iron weights.
Their decomposed bodies were found by a fisherman two months later during the search for three murdered civil rights activists in the notorious killings portrayed in the 1988 Alan Parker film Mississippi Burning.
Mr Seale, then 28, and Charles Edwards, then 31, were arrested but quickly released. Mr Edwards allegedly told investigators that he and Seale, whose father led a chapter of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, had picked up the hitch-hikers. He insisted they were still alive when he left them.
When asked at the time if he knew why he was being interrogated, Seale told the FBI: “Yes, but I'm not going to admit it. You are going to have to prove it.”
Seale was eventually tracked down by a documentary-maker, David Ridgen, who found him living just a few miles from the scene of the crime despite reports that he was dead.
Seale was sentenced to three life sentences for kidnapping and conspiracy in June 2007 on the basis of the testimony of Mr Edwards, a confessed Klansman, who received immunity from prosecution for his admitted role in the abductions.
Mr Edwards said that Seale had told him how he and other Klansmen had bound the hitch-hikers with tape, put them into a car boot and drove them through part of eastern Louisiana to get to the area where the teenagers were dumped, still alive, into the river.
A federal appeals court overturned Seale's conviction on Tuesday because the 1972 law that abolished the death penalty for kidnapping also set a five-year time limit for prosecutions. “The more than 40-year delay clearly exceeded the limitations period,” Judge Harold R. DeMoss Jr wrote for the three-judge panel.
Seale has been serving his sentences at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he is being treated for cancer and other health problems. He must remain in jail while the prosecutor prepares an appeal.
Charles Moore's brother said that despite the ruling, the trial had still brought out the truth of what happened. “This doesn't take one ounce away from me,” said Thomas Moore. “James Ford Seale has spent more than a year in jail. I know I have disrupted his life.”
Hooded menace
— The 19th-century Klan was originally organised as a social club by Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. They apparently derived the name from the Greek word kyklos meaning circle
— It was presided over by a grand wizard in a hierarchy of grand dragons, grand titans and grand cyclops. Members wore robes and sheets to frighten black people, believed to be superstitious, and to prevent identification
— The 20th-century Klan was organised in 1915 in Georgia by Colonel William J. Simmons
— It reached its peak in the 1920s, when its membership across the US exceeded four million
— To the old Klan's hostility towards black people, the new Klan added bias against Roman Catholics, Jews and foreigners
— There are an estimated 6,000 members of Klan chapters in the US today
Source: britannica.com
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4727527.ece
IV. Date and Place
May 2, 1964 in Roxie, MississippiV. Multimedia Found on the Internet
VII. Map
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Stacy Miller & Jill Darrough